Emails shed light on altering Columbus schools' student data

Wednesday

Jul 9, 2014 at 12:01 AMJul 9, 2014 at 8:54 PM

Newly discovered emails show the matter-of-fact way some Columbus principals asked former data czar Steve Tankovich to alter their school data, even when it was inappropriate. The emailed requests are the first documents made public that show Tankovich knew of and participated in manipulating student data. Tankovich oversaw Columbus City Schools' data collection and reporting for years.

Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch

Newly discovered emails show the matter-of-fact way some Columbus principals asked former data czar Steve Tankovich to alter their school data, even when it was inappropriate.

The emailed requests are the first documents made public that show Tankovich knew of and participated in manipulating student data. Tankovich oversaw Columbus City Schools’ data collection and reporting for years.

District officials said they only recently found the emails (and one fax) and forwarded them to the state auditor, who released the findings of his investigation months ago. Investigators said they aren’t pleased that the emails hadn’t been handed over sooner.

While investigators and district employees have said Tankovich was the mastermind of many of the district’s data changes, he put very little in writing, at least as it related to altering student data. He personally changed no data.

But in this case, principals addressed Tankovich and he forwarded each last-minute request to withdraw students to one of his data workers. That worker then withdrew the children.

For example, the principal of Siebert Elementary made her request on June 29, 2011, well after the school year had ended but just before data had to be sent to the state so that school report cards could be calculated. One boy had been out for exactly 10 days in October and November because his father died, according to the email. Another was gone for about two weeks after he was hit by a car.

Although both of those reasons for being absent are legitimate under state rules, it apparently did not matter. Principal Debra Archie-Wilkerson had her secretary email Tankovich and ask him to retroactively withdraw them months after their absences.

A lawyer for the district said officials have provided about a million pages of documents in response to roughly 125 different subpoenas and records requests.

“When, as here, we find something that we did not previously know to exist, or when we discover that there is something that for some reason we have not previously produced, it is our practice, as here, promptly to produce it,” said Robert “Buzz” Trafford, the lawyer the district hired to help navigate its data scandal.

Trafford said the emails were “the result of an inquiry we were making into a different issue regarding the data investigation” and “break little new ground,” as the district already is aware that Tankovich was involved in improper changes.

But state Auditor Dave Yost said the late release of the emails fits a pattern.

“I’m troubled by this. More so because it isn’t the first time it’s happened,” Yost said. During his investigation, district officials overlooked some records that investigators had subpoenaed. Others were forgotten or incomplete. At one point, Yost obtained warrants and, accompanied by police, seized records.

As for these records, Yost said, “basically, the (district’s) explanation was, ‘oopsie.’”

Tankovich’s lawyer said he can’t explain why they weren’t provided to investigators already.

“Mr. Tankovich has turned everything over. Columbus Public Schools has had all of his emails and information from Day One,” said Mark C. Collins, a criminal-defense lawyer in Columbus.

Tankovich resigned in March 2013 after 44 years with the district. Prosecutors have been reviewing the Columbus case to see if criminal charges are warranted.

“We just became aware of a series of emails from principals to Mr. Tankovich within the last month,” said Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien. “All parties involved in reviewing the audit report have examined them and we have consulted with Mr. Tankovich’s lawyer regarding those emails and how they may affect the ongoing investigation, because we

weren’t aware of them and had not considered them as part of the ongoing inquiry.”

For more than two years, The Dispatch has reported about data changes in Columbus, often using the district’s computer logs that show what changes were made, when and by whom. But the computer logs show transactions without context. The emails offer more insight.

The Woodward Park Middle School secretary wrote Tankovich in late June to say: “We only have one student whose academic year should be broken. (The student) missed 86 total days” and should be withdrawn on May 3 and re-enrolled on May 18.

“Thanks for all of your help!”

Withdrawing students likely helped the schools. Test scores and absences of students who aren’t enrolled in a school for a “full academic year,” or roughly October through May, aren’t included on school report cards. A student who had been absent a total of 86 days would reflect poorly on Woodward Park. The 15-day withdrawal meant those absences wouldn’t count.

Typically, the principals or secretaries could have withdrawn the students themselves. But as the deadline approaches to submit the year’s data to the Ohio Department of Education, access to the data system is restricted to certain users at the district’s data center.

Collins, Tankovich’s lawyer, noted that Tankovich did not reply to the principals or secretaries.

“He does not comment on them or discuss anything backward or forward up the chain. He simply forwards them on to the analyst,” Collins said.

Tankovich assumed that the changes being requested were above-board and that principals had documented the reasons for each one, Collins said.

The principals who emailed Tankovich are not among those known to have changed vast amounts of student data. But their names are among the 61 educators whose records recently were subpoenaed by the arm of the Ohio Department of Education that investigates educator misconduct.

jsmithrichards@dispatch.com

@jsmithrichards

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